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By Currents News and Bill Miller
Cram a multitude of teens and young adults into one space, and it’s going to get loud. That’s precisely what happened on Aug. 2 near a university campus on the outskirts of Rome.
Hundreds of thousands of young Catholic pilgrims from across the globe — with some estimates saying it was around 1 million — assembled near the University of Rome Tor Vergata for prayer and an overnight vigil.
RELATED: Pope Leo XIV Urges Youth To Find Hope, Friendship in Christ in Uncertain Times
The gathering was part of the celebrations for the 2025 Jubilee of Youth. Among them were 87 pilgrims from the Diocese of Brooklyn, plus chaperones, parish priests, and Bishop Robert Brennan.
The exuberant New Yorkers, toting the flags of the United States, the Roman Catholic Church, and the diocese, participated in the joyous assembly led by Pope Leo XIV.
One pilgrim from Queens described the young people as being “so alive and so inflamed with our faith.” That is, until the new pope raised a monstrance containing the Blessed Sacrament for Eucharistic adoration.
“Literally,” Jon Paolo “J.P.” Marasigan said, “You had a million people — who were completely loud and noisy just minutes before — falling into complete silence, worshiping the Blessed Sacrament.
“Beautiful!”
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The Jubilee of Youth, held from July 28 to Aug. 3, was part of the 2025 Jubilee Year celebrating the anniversary of the Incarnation of the Lord. Youth and young adults came to Rome for the international celebration and pilgrimage.
The Diocese of Brooklyn’s pilgrims came from several parishes.
Included were St. Brigid, Bushwick; St. Athanasius, Bensonhurst; Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Astoria; the Shrine Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Williamsburg; St. Mary Gate of Heaven, South Ozone Park; St. Pancras, Glendale; and the Basilica of Regina Pacis, Dyker Heights.
Marasigan is a co-youth minister at St. Mary Gate of Heaven.
He told The Tablet on Aug. 5, just hours after returning from Rome, that the Jubilee of Youth showed the world that the Catholic faith is strong among the world’s youth.
“It was a testament to everyone who says that young people aren’t falling in love with Catholicism,” he said. “Yes, we are still here in the Church. It is something that I want to share with the people right here in Brooklyn and Queens.”
Another attendee, Luis Sanchez, from Our Lady of Mount Carmel, agreed.
“The youth need to be heard,” he said. “In return, our Catholic faith will see their active participation will be equivalent to how much we listen to the youth.”
Felicity Morel, also from Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Astoria, said the nine-day experience invigorated her faith, especially the Eucharistic adoration at the Aug. 2 night vigil.
“I just felt so close to Jesus,” she said. “Honestly, it taught me that I do love the Eucharist. It helped me understand, this is my faith.
“This is why I love my faith.”
RELATED: ‘God Is Waiting To Transform Your Life,’ Pope Says During Closing Mass for Jubilee of Youth
The first day of the pilgrimage included a tour of Assisi, where participants learned about St. Francis and St. Clare.
Later in the week, they also visited the tombs of many other saints, plus two young men who will be canonized in September — Blessed Carlo Acutis and Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati.
Felicity, who will enter Emmanuel College in Boston this fall, said she was impressed to hear the biographies of saints and learn that they, too, had flaws.
“It was lovely knowing that these were normal people, who were also sinners, and yet they became saints,” she said.
She praised Bishop Brennan for walking every step with the pilgrims.
“It was very comforting knowing that the bishop of our diocese, which is very big, can really be someone that you can talk to,” she said.
Amy Vu, also from Our Lady of Mount Carmel, said it was “spiritually nurturing” to walk through the holy doors of the major basilicas in Rome, which are opened during a Jubilee, every 25 years. These portals are at St. Peter’s, St. John Lateran, St. Paul Outside the Walls, and St. Mary Major, which is the burial place for Pope Francis.
Amy said she was glad to pass through that door because she had hoped to see Pope Francis at the Jubilee, but he died last April.
Still, all four of the pilgrims were excited to see Pope Leo up close. They described rushing to the barricades to see him better as he passed in the popemobile.
During the homily of the closing Mass on Aug. 3, Pope Leo urged the pilgrims to realize that “everything in the world has meaning only insofar as it serves to unite us to God and to our brothers and sisters in charity.”
RELATED: For US Pilgrims, Jubilee of Youth Confirms Call to Holiness in Everyday Life
Such things, he added, help “us to grow in compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience, forgiveness and peace, all in imitation of Christ.”
Amy said she hopes to do that when she begins college in the fall to study biology and English at Stony Brook University on Long Island.
“I want to really focus on being faithful in college, because one of the things that I don’t want to dwindle, or lose, is my faith,” she said. “So, I want to try to work on my faith through volunteering or helping out at campus ministry.
“And, of course, going to Mass.”
Over 1 million young people from all over the world came to Rome to celebrate their faith with Pope Leo XIV – including parishioners from the Diocese of Brooklyn.
Bishop Robert Brennan was right alongside the young people of Brooklyn and Queens in their journey. Now he’s sharing what it was like to be there with them.
A Catholic teen from Long Island also got the chance to see the Holy Father, and came home with a blessing he won’t soon forget.
Catholics in Haiti are calling for an end to bloodshed – for years, the country has been plagued by gang violence and political unrest.
In Argentina, a relic of the soon-to-be first millennial saint Blessed Carlo Actus was stolen from a Catholic church. The pastor is now pleading for the criminals to return it.
Pro-life Catholics in New York are condemning Planned Parenthood for asking for $35 million in state funds to offset Congress cutting Medicaid funding.
By Currents News and Paula Katinas
ALBANY — Calling it a “money grab,” the New York State Catholic Conference is responding to reports that Planned Parenthood is requesting $35 million in funding from New York State to help offset Medicaid funding cuts by the federal government.
“New York State taxpayers should not be forced to prop up a clearly failing organization, especially one whose main business is terminating unborn lives,” Kristen Curran, director of government relations for the Catholic conference, said in a statement.
Curran accused Planned Parenthood of being “a bottomless pit of spending to the detriment of the communities that truly need support,” noting that those communities include working families, hungry children, people with disabilities, and those with mental health issues.
“Enough is enough!” Curran said.
RELATED: Federal Judge Blocks Planned Parenthood Defunding Indefinitely
Planned Parenthood did not return The Tablet’s request for a comment. In statements to media outlets after the report came out, Planned Parenthood did not deny the $35 million request, but did say that “they are working with the state to make sure that 1.5 million New Yorkers don’t lose access to reproductive and sexual health care,” according to Spectrum News report.
The organization’s leaders, however, have previously expressed outrage when Congress passed a bill that included cutting the organization’s Medicaid funding. President Donald Trump signed the bill into law in July.
Wendy Stark, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Greater New York, called the bill “a targeted attack on Planned Parenthood health centers and patients who cannot afford health care.”
The funding cut notwithstanding, Stark vowed that the organization would “continue to show up for communities who rely on our health centers.”
Planned Parenthood has had a tumultuous year in New York. In March, the organization announced that it would close its last remaining health center in Manhattan at 26 Bleecker Street in NoHo.
RELATED: Pro-Life Vigil Celebrates Planned Parenthood Clinic Closure
At the time, Planned Parenthood claimed that the gap between the funds it spends to treat patients and the money the organization receives in Medicaid reimbursements is widening, which made difficult choices necessary.
“This is an emotional decision for us,” Stark said in a statement.
As of Aug. 11, the Bleecker Street location was still open, although Bernadette Patel, a pro-life advocate who led a prayer vigil outside the health center in April, said it was operating with reduced hours.
According to the New York State Catholic Conference, Planned Parenthood doesn’t deserve additional state funding because it already gets plenty of the taxpayers’ money.
“The abortion industry in New York is looking increasingly like an irresponsible and spoiled adolescent, spending its generous allowance too fast,” Curran said.
By Currents News
Flags of Argentina, Brazil, Peru, and Croatia filled Saint Peter’s Square on Sunday, August 10.
As people do every week, thousands were gathered beneath the balcony of the Apostolic Palace to hear what Pope Leo XIV had to say.
After the Angelus prayer, the pope took a moment to comment on current international affairs.
The days prior had marked the 80th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – the pontiff used the moment to call for peace.
“May those who make decisions always keep in mind their responsibility for the consequences of those decisions on populations,” he said. “May they not ignore the needs of the most vulnerable, nor the universal yearning for peace.”
Pope Leo also urged the international community to take action towards the end of conflict and violence in Haiti.
“The situation of the Haitian people is increasingly desperate. News of murders, all types of violence, human trafficking, forced exiles, and kidnappings is constant,” he said. “I make an urgent appeal to all responsible parties to immediately release the hostages, and I call on the international community for concrete support to create the social and institutional conditions that would allow Haitians to live in peace.”
On Sunday Pope Leo XIV also congratulated the governments of Azerbaijan and Armenia, who signed a peace agreement at the White House after years of conflict.
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After her newborn daughter was diagnosed with a rare illness called Powassan virus, a mother is raising awareness about the disease.
By Katie Vasquez
Pilgrims from across the Diocese of Brooklyn spent nine days in the Eternal City, joining together in prayer and fellowship with more than 1 million other young people.
“It was very uplifting to see the praise and the worship throughout the streets of Rome, and it’s my first time seeing this magnitude,” Luis Sanchez, a pilgrim from Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in Queens told Currents News.
For fellow Queens pilgrim Amy Vu, walking through the Holy Doors of St. Peter’s Basilica was an experience she will never forget.
“It felt like spiritually nurturing, but it’s also like I sometimes felt emotional from it,” said Vu.
JP Marasigan said his life-changing moment came before the Body of Christ, when thousands upon thousands of other Jubilee pilgrims went silent.
“It’s a testament to everyone that says that young people aren’t falling in love with Catholicism. To show them that yes, we are,” said Marasigan, a pilgrim from St. Mary Gate of Heaven Church in Queens.
Being so close to the first American Holy Father was a highlight for many.
“I couldn’t believe that I was looking at the pope, that was like 50 feet away from me,” Felicity Morel, a young pilgrim from Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church, told Currents News. “It was honestly amazing.”
“We were like, front row to see the pope. And then we celebrated Mass with the pope,” said Vu. “And that was like maybe a once or twice in a lifetime opportunity. So I’m really grateful to have experienced that.”
Morel said she was influenced by her time with Brooklyn Bishop Robert Brennan.
“Knowing that he was there, interacting with not only the other priests, but also all the young people. It was very comforting,” she said.
Now these young people hope to share what they have learned with other faithful.
“I think going to Mass every day and going to adoration that was led by the pope at the vigil was amazing,” added Morel. “And I really did feel like I did strengthen my love for the Eucharist.”
“One of the things that I don’t want to dwindle or lose is my faith. So I want to try to really, give back to the community and college and work on my faith,” said Vu.